Past & current clients
David is brilliant to work with—a consummate professional and a lovely human being. He is an exceedingly skilled editor, writer, strategist, and visual artist. He can direct and/or support all aspects of the research process: from grant application to project management, reporting and knowledge dissemination. I cannot recommend him highly enough!
David Szanto is a master weaver of food stories. He combines unquenchable curiosity, genuinely collaborative research methods, and dexterous use of language and imagery to evoke people’s realities in ways that resonate deeply with any audience, whether academic or broader. I would recommend David to anyone who wants to capture and communicate food knowledge in ways they haven’t yet imagined.
David’s work as co-Editor-in-Chief and back-end manager of our open-access journal is extremely thorough and thoughtful. He was part of the CFS founding team ten years ago, and continues to make essential contributions to the journal. He is extremely supportive of authors, staff, and the Editorial Collective, and has helped CFS evolve to an important part of the Canadian food studies landscape.
David was one of three core grant writers on our successful SSHRC Partnership that received $2.5 million in funding. He was central to deciding on our content, flow, and look for the entire application, and I am sure his contribution was a key ingredient to our success. I will always include David in any grant writing work going forward. He is insightful, an excellent team member, and a pleasure to collaborate with.
David has been an inspiring and flexible collaborator who brings an artist’s eye to research praxis and education, and in the process, inspires new ways of thinking about intractable problems. One of his skills is to quickly make sense of diverse disciplinary and professional backgrounds and reframe them in a way that creatively and productively expands their traditional parameters. This included his keynote presentation and performance at the 2016 Symposium of Australian Gastronomy, and in developing and delivering a postgraduate unit on the ‘Politics of Gastronomy’ as part of William Angliss Institute’s Master of Food Systems and Gastronomy. Working with David is always a productive and enriching experience for me.
David was invaluable to our project engaging small-scale farmers in Quebec and Ontario. He helped to frame a unique workshop design by drawing on expertise in arts-based methods; he also played a crucial role as facilitator in the workshops themselves. It is rare to find someone with such abundant creativity who is also well-organized, humble, and hardworking!
David’s attention to detail, clear communication style, and ability to keep project goals in view while solving problems creatively and collaboratively makes him an incredibly effective project manager and editor. Simply put, David’s skills are unmatched and he is a joy to work with.
David very ably undertook and understood the role of External Examiner for the MSc Gastronomy. He is responsive, meets turnaround targets, and ask good questions. He encourages without recourse to platitudes, respects the challenges we all face, is supportive but also kindly critical. It has been a privilege to have someone of his experience and stature on the team, and we offer our sincerest thanks for his efforts on behalf of the programme, staff, and students.
David is that rarest of persons—both a visionary thinker and a detail-oriented doer. Combined with his artistic and design expertise, David has been integral to the look, feel, and success of the Canadian Association for Food Studies.
David was a delight to work with on the publication Growing Common Ground. In order to come up with the most compelling design, he asked important questions about the user experience I wanted to provide. By making me think more deeply about content, form, and feel, David took things to the next level.
product & service development
Aetna Insurance
Balance Bar/Kraft Foods
L.L. Bean
PepsiCo
Post Consumer Brands
Pitney Bowes
Tropicana